In the book, Their Eyes Were Watching Gods by Zora Neale Hurston. In chapter one, it begins with Janie Starks coming back to town as she came back many people speculated why she did. Chapter one took place after her “American Dream.” In chapter twenty it takes place after Tea Cake dies and she comes back. In Zora Neale Hurston’s book, Janie redefines what it means for the American Dream. Instead of wealth and homes and what we Americas idolize her dream is love. The theme based around this novel throughout every chapter is relationships. When I say relationship I mean love and power and inequality affects her and her relationships throughout the novel. In chapter 20 her love for tea Cake is shown. Logan Killocks who is a wealthy farmer and landowner In these chapters you learn about the “American Dream,” she was forced to live that what she had with him wasn’t what she wanted. You learn about the hardships that she went through and her relationship with Logan Killocks. She was forced into this relationship by her former slave grandmother, Nanny. “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.” She then meets Joe Stark or Jody and falls in love with him or what she thinks to be love.
In one of the essays in the book, Something to declare by Julia Alvarez. The chapter First Muse, Is about a little girl who fines English and the “American education,” boring. She is Dominican and is taught English for the move to the United States. She is reading a book about a girl who feels like as a female she is less important than men. She wants freedom from the responsibilities as a woman they put on her. She states that when she gets older she will have kids so her mom won’t be mad, but then she will become a famous actress and travel the world to do whatever she wants. As she keeps reading she relates to the person in the book even more. They both tell stories to get out of a story to get out of situations. She learned that through stories she could get that sense of redemption that she sought.
In comparison to both in the novel, Their eyes were watching gods and Something to declare. In theses chapter the American dream for a black female in theses times were to have someone who is well off, honest, and good financially. She seen why her grandmother pushed for it was because coming from a slave who lived with nothing a man who is set would be perfect. Even though she didn’t love him he had money and in these times and ages, money is everything especially to someone who doesn’t have it. In the essay in the book, Something to declare by Julia Alvarez. The compare as both women who feel that them being a female that they have been given a birth sentence to a life they don’t want. In contrast, In the novel, she is taken to marry someone she doesn’t love, also in the essay she is told how to live. Both characters have this stress and burden is because they are both women. In contrast to both the books, They are in a different setting which leads to different burdens but that doesn’t change the reason. They both are at different ages and are on different tracks. One sought freedom and another sought love from another.
